2 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



venture to say that it is a volume of which our Founder would 

 have approved. 



The Membership increased slightly during 1907, as ten Mem- 

 bers were elected; two Members, one of them, Professor Liver- 

 sidge, an Original Member, resigned in consequence of departures 

 from Australia; and another of the dwindled little group of 

 Original Members, Mr. David Scott Mitchell, deceased on 24th 

 July. Professor Liversidge's connection with the University of 

 Sydney dates from the year 1872, so that he has been closely 

 identified with higher education and with scientific developments 

 in New South Wales during the most expansive period of its 

 history; and therefore we part with him with great regret. 



Mr. David Scott Mitchell, M.A., whose association with the 

 Society goes back to the 8th December, 1874, was born in Sydney 

 in 1836. His second name recalls his relationship to the late 

 Alexander Walker Scott, M.A., and his two accomplished 

 daughters, Mrs. Morgan, recently deceased, and Mrs. Forde, the 

 author and illustrators of that meritorious but, alas! uncompleted 

 work " Australian Lepidoptera and their Transformations; 

 drawn from the Life, by Harriet and Helena Scott; with Descrip- 

 tions, general and systematic (7 Pts. 1864-98). Mr. Mitchell was 

 one of the first batch of graduates of the University of Sydney, 

 taking his B.A. in 1856, and his M.A. in 1859. In 1858 he was 

 admitted to the Bar, but did not practise as he had inherited 

 considerable private means from his father. Thereafter he 

 devoted his time and energy to the conduct of his private affairs, 

 and to the gratification of his individual tastes as a bibliophile 

 and collector. The results of forty-five years' discriminating and 

 unstinted collecting of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, pictures, 

 <£c, chiefly but not exclusively relating to Australasia, hence- 

 forth to be known as the Mitchell Library, were bequeathed to 

 the State, together with the sum of £70,000 for endowment, 

 upon certain conditions. The more important of these were 

 that the individuality of the collection should be conserved, that 

 it should be suitably housed in a separate wing of the contem- 

 plated National Library of the State, and that it should be main- 



